We celebrate the Top 100 B.C. companies in this issue, including a list of B.C.’s top technology companies of today. The technology industry has seen quite a few success stories in the past 40 years, but all of these stories have focused on the company itself. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see the top 100 product innovations from B.C., ranked by revenue? I have had this discussion with local technology leaders about which innovations ended up being huge products driving hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in revenue. Sometimes the most lucrative innovations were not commercialized by companies here in B.C., but they are very much B.C. born. This list is completely qualitative and would be practically impossible to validate. But it’s fun to speculate, and I am sure there are some that you didn’t know about.
First the obvious money-making innovations, starting with the Platesetter line of computer-to-plate machines that changed the printing industry. Creo came up with the innovation in the early ’90s and built its billion-dollar business around selling and servicing this innovation, which is still sold today by Kodak. How about Crystal Reports, the world’s leading business intelligence reporting tool? The innovation, also developed in the early ’90s, was in the Terry Cunningham-led Crystal Services. The company was bought and sold twice between 1994 and 2003, but the same management team continued to commercialize the technology. Business Objects bought the company in 2003, and SAP, which bought Business Objects, still sells the Crystal Reports product line today.
Another massive sales generator was Angiotech’s Taxus product line (paclitaxel-coated stents for heart surgery). Unlike some biotech companies that have a decade or two pass before meaningful revenue, the Taxus line has been streaming fat royalties to the company since 1999. Similarly, QLT’s innovation for macular degeneration, called Visudyne, has been very lucrative. In the case of the biotech innovations, one must consider the total product revenue to the pharmaceutical company partner, which is now Novartis in the case of Visudyne.
Born in the basement of a Burnaby home, the Need for Speed video game product series started as a revolutionary video game in the late ’80s called Test Drive. After Electronic Arts bought Distinctive Software, the Need for Speed franchise really took off and is still selling today (it’s even an iPhone app!).
And now for some money-making local innovations you probably haven’t heard about. You really have to be a technology geek like me to find this exciting, but I think the number-one selling product born in B.C. is an ATM switch. No, that doesn’t refer to a bank machine, but to asynchronous transfer mode, a technology for transmitting information along phone lines. Back in the ’80s, a team led by Norm Dowds at MPR Teltech devised a new, fast data switch for telecom networks. In the worst deal in B.C. history, BC Tel sold the product to Newbridge for next to nothing. Newbridge and Alcatel went on to make hay with the MainStreet switch family that emerged from the original B.C. product.
Another innovation that you have heard of, but probably have never thought of as a B.C. innovation, is Botox for cosmetic use. In 1987 UBC ophthalmologist Jean Carruthers noticed that wrinkles disappeared when she was using botulinum toxin for treating eye disorders. She and her husband patented the use for cosmetics, creating a massive global royalty stream.
I must say that I have likely missed a few product innovations such as Accpac and the SONET framers from PMC-Sierra. And lest you think that all innovation of any note in B.C. came from the ’80s and ’90s, the simple response is that newer innovations haven’t been around long enough to know their full impact. I’d be interested in hearing about others that I have missed! n
Brent Holliday heads the technology practice for Capital West Partners, a Vancouver-based investment bank.